10 Movies You Need to See on Amazon Prime Video
#160: Amazon Prime Video, "The Voyeurs," "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," "The Last Duel"
Edition 160:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: We’re taking a look at a dark horse in the Streaming Wars, Amazon Prime Video, and its surprisingly good streaming movie library. Then our usual roundup of streaming suggestions (for the first time in a while!) including a kick in the pants to go watch one of 2021’s best. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” Charlie Hunnam punches Mel Gibson in the face.
10 Movies You Need to See on Amazon Prime Video
I got some news for you: Amazon Prime is trying to WIN the Streaming Wars.
The retail giant has nearly unlimited cash on hand, and though it’s using some of that to ship toilet paper to you within hours of you clicking the button online and/or take over the world (all while its founder tries desperately to escape the planet), recent moves indicate the company is also dead set on surviving the media consolidation arms race.
They’re in the awards hunt on the movies side, they secured the rights to Thursday Night Football, they purchased MGM (with its James Bond and Rocky IP) for $8.5 Billion, oh and this week they released first teaser for “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” which is, quite literally, a BILLION dollar TV show.
It’s time to pay attention! I know many of you have an Amazon Prime account for the two-day shipping, and would guess most of you aren’t using the included streaming platform nearly as much as competitors (Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max).
And I’m here to tell you that they have a very good movie library! Particularly, surprisingly, their Amazon Studios “originals” from recent years.
So without further ado, here’s 10 movies on Amazon Prime Video you need to watch!
1. Inside Llewyn Davis
While it’s impossible for me to pick my favorite Coen Brothers movie, this is the one I think about the most. It follows the life of a sad sack musician in 1960s Greenwich Village, eager to blame cosmic forces for his failures and unable to accept he doesn’t quite have the stuff to make his ambitions become reality — cast in the shadow (and very much in the aesthetic) of a young Bob Dylan. It provides reflections on the pursuit of meaning while also producing a killer folk music soundtrack and locking in my undying devotion to lead actor Oscar Isaac for the rest of his career. This is a sad movie, but it’s quite simply one of my favorite movies of all time.
2. The Only Living Boy In New York
If it feels like I’ve pumped up this movie dozens of times in this newsletter, it’s because I have. I admit I’m an easy target for Marc Webb’s overly sentimental storytelling (500 Days of Summer), but I legitimately think this coming-of-age story about a young man in New York City who begins a relationship with his father’s mistress is simply one of the most underrated movies of the 2010s. Killer performances from Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan and Kate Beckinsale, smart writing, and the type of feel-good ending that will melt your heart every single time.
3. Get Shorty
Really playing the hits here. This is one of my favorite neo-noir capers, nailing that delicate tone of super fun and also very exciting with a dash of mystery and complexity. Plus, you’ve got John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo and James Gandolfini?! Travolta plays a mafia bounty hunter who follows a mark out to Los Angeles and decides he wants to become a movie producer. What more could you really want?
4. A Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Had to sneak one more personal favorite in here. A number of Wes Anderson movies are on Amazon, but he remains one of my favorite directors and this remains my favorite of his work. Bill Murray plays an aquamarine documentarian, who’s reevaluating his life after his best friend dies and he discovers he has a son (played by Owen Wilson). It’s got all the usually light-hearted quirkiness and fun of typical Wes Anderson, while also creating a really touching emotional resonance around fame, legacy, and what really matters in our lives. I love it.
5. Train to Busan
Any shortlist of the greatest zombie movies of all time would be incomplete without this 2016 Korean thriller. A businessman (played by The Salesman from “Squid Game” !!) takes his daughter on a cross-country train trip as a zombie apocalypse breaks out. Passengers on the train emerge as fascinating characters (including the son from Parasite!) with differing responses to the crisis, which unfolds in one pulse-pounding action sequence after another while still managing to build in plenty of emotional stakes and character development. It’s such a fun and complete mastery of a well-worn genre.
6. His Girl Friday
I limited myself to one “old” black-and-white movie, even though Amazon has the second best golden era collection behind HBO Max (if you’ve never seen 12 Angry Men, stop what you’re doing and correct that). My choice was the snappy newspaper comedy starring Cary Grant as a newspaper editor and Rosalind Russell as his ace reporter. The two happened to be former lovers, and though Russell is engaged to another man she’s married to her work, and Grant uses the job to attempt to win her back. If you like the work of Aaron Sorkin, you’ll love the machine gun dialogue and quippy repartee here.
7. Do The Right Thing
This is the type of movie that should be disqualified from this list because it’s too much of an all-time classic. But in my conversations and feedback from newsletter readers, I get the sense that certain people (I’ll say it, white people), have simply ignored the masterworks of Spike Lee. Nothing is more iconic than this early masterpiece, also starring Lee as a pizza delivery boy at a white-owned pizzeria that becomes the site of racial violence in 1980s Brooklyn. It’s a slice of life that escalates into a treatise on police violence, hitting like a ton of bricks by its remarkable conclusion.
8. What If
I really wanted to recommend The Big Sick, which I think is one of best romantic comedies of the 21st century, but I’ve recommended it a ton of times and feel like most of you all have probably watched it by now (if not, it’s awesome) so wanted to reach a little deeper. And, coincidentally, it stars the same female lead! Here Zoe Kazan teams with Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame) in a stage adaptation about the friendship of a boy who’s lost his faith in love and a girl who’s firmly committed to someone else. It’s cute, it’s funny, and hits all those rom-com tropes in a way that’s totally satisfying. It definitely deserves more love.
9. Sound of Metal
I narrowed it down to just one more Amazon Studios movie, though if you’re curious here’s a few more that are great: The Big Sick, Blow the Man Down, Manchester by the Sea, and especially the Japanese erotic thriller The Handmaiden is awesome. But I just don’t think this 2019 drama got enough love from you all, even after I praised it a year ago. Riz Ahmed is simply incredible as a drummer who loses his hearing, upending his life, his relationship with his girlfriend played the great Olivia Cooke, and bringing to the surface his struggles with substance abuse. This movie is super smart and has an incredibly big heart.
10. Once
As much as I wanted to recommend Crazy Heart, the Jeff Bridges-led country music rom-com, I have to give it up to the king of the music movie, John Carney. I love his movies Begin Again (currently on Netflix) and Sing Street, but Carney’s foray into the genre began with this low budget entry about a street musician who starts writing songs with a girl that sort of spell out their own love story as they’re experiencing it. As with all his movies, it’s got unforgettable music and irresistibly sweet storytelling.
Something New
The Voyeurs (Amazon Prime): The premise of this movie is basically “take Rear Window but make it sexy,” a promise it certainly delivers on (warning up front, there’s quite a bit of sexual content). A couple moves in together and begins spying on a couple in the apartment across the way that appears cooler, richer and more attractive than them, spiraling into a kind of obsession that leads to their lives eventually getting tangled up. It’s one of those movies where the foundation of the narrative feels unsafe, proceeding with no safety net, in a way that’s really unnerving (reminding me of Uncut Gems, or the first time I watched Gone Girl). You can’t help but constantly be yelling at the screen, “No! Don’t do that!” often while grasping the sides of your head.
From a tonal standpoint, it’s a huge success for first time writer/director Michael Mohan, and an absolute charisma showcase for lead actress Sydney Sweeney. Still, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by the way Mohan filled out some really good ideas and structuring with hacky, eye-roll worthy dialogue and decision-making within scenes. Even more damning is the ending, which follows up an extremely satisfying (if horrifying) climax with an additional 15-20 minutes of, well, crap. Multiple endings, massive tonal shift, and the revelation that instead of trying to make a provocative psychological drama (think Ex Machina), Mohan was actually trying to make a pulpy genre movie (think Basic Instinct).
This could have been one of those independent gems among the top 20 or so movies of 2021, but instead it falls somewhere in the upper-middle class of last year’s slate. Proceed at your own discretion!
Something Old
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967, Starz or $VOD): Rest in peace to Sidney Poitier, the first Black man to win the Best Actor Oscar (and appallingly the only one for another 38 years after). While he won for Lillies of the Field (which I admit I haven’t seen), the essential Poitier movie has to be this 1967 classic starring three Oscar winners — the other two being Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It’s an incredible cultural document to revisit too, because of how shocking the premise was at the time: Poitier is going to meet his girlfriend’s parents, a white family who don’t know he’s black. And most of the movie is them struggling to give him their blessing. Worth your time!
Something to Stream
The Last Duel (HBO Max): Ok, I know none of you all went out to the theater to see Ridley Scott’s medieval #MeToo drama starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck. But as I tried to tell you back in October, this movie is very good (No. 11 for the year!).
Now there’s no excuse, since it’s available in the comfort of your homes and, since I know you lazy bums like to do this, it’s divided into three individual “chapters” so you can watch the movie in multiple sittings (a good thing since the run time is 2 hr. 32 min.).
Check out my full review for all the details. The premise a bit of a tough sell, and the ambitions are a bit more lofty than the true Gladiator-esque popcorn flick one might be expecting, but anecdotally I’ve gotten several texts and messages from people who have decided to watch it and were pleasantly surprised — even dumfounded as to how this movie became such a box office flop.
Trailer Watch: Last Looks
It’s going to be a bleak couple of months for movie trailers, as studios advertise their upcoming “Dumpuary” projects. But as someone who has recommended Get Shorty a bunch of times (including today), you all know I have a soft spot in my heart for show biz-adjacent detective stories. Give me Mel Gibson, a clean-shaven Charlie Hunnam and that quippy caper tone and you already know I’m all the way in.